Garden Roses and Indoor Roses

Fancy Pants Miniature Rose - Two months ago

We had our first snow! It's officially winter time in Philadelphia.
It's been cold for a little while now, and all my herbs in the garden are dead, dead, dead. Well, all except the Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme who are somehow holding on.

Fancy Pants Miniature Rose - Yesterday

Also holding on is my beautiful Fancy Pants Miniature Rose. It's incredible. I'm really quite shocked by how beautiful this rose is turning out to be. I purchased it on a whim (From HeirloomRoses.com) and wasn't expecting much. When it arrived it was healthy, a month after planting it was yeilding blooms, but it was still just mediocre to my tastes. However! It seems like the more that this mini establishes itself, the more beauty and tenacity it has! Which is to be expected, but still, shocker! The foliage is now a deep dark purple-green color that is absolutely to die for! And the blooms? Legitimately deep red on the outside petals, and white with blood red tips on the inside. They were not this beautiful before!

Fancy Pants Miniature Rose, pictured on the left.
The pink is actually blood red in person, please excuse the poor cell phone photo! Better photo coming soon!

Additionally, the ground is now covered in snow, making the blooms stand out even more!

And the Gross adult Aphids... :(

Conversely, my indoor rose is not doing so well. I have kept indoor roses before, and never had much problem growing them indoors. However, they are usually miniatures, and I was living in a different climate at the time. This time, I brought my David Austin Charity Rose indoors so that it could establish itself a little more before weathering a harsh winter outdoors. I'm unfortunately experiencing a very large aphid problem.

After reading a lot on the wonderful GardenWeb.com forums, I made a "Garlic Spray" that I will be using on them tonight when I get home from work. From different people online I figured that I could mince (and then mash with the flat of the knife!) a whole garlic bulb, "saute" it in the frying pan with some water, add some spicy pepper (I chose to use ghost pepper powder, though I've read any spicy pepper or pepper sauce will do), and then let it all steep in boiling hot water like tea for an hour. I will then spray it on my roses (currently spending the afternoon on the porch) when I get home. Hopefully this mixture will work, because they're pretty nasty! I also plan on doing some serious pruning this evening.

David Austin Charity Rose - 1 month growth
(Ring for size reference)

David Austin Charity Rose - 6 months later
(The single tall stem has been trimmed all the way down twice.)